I Pods

[anotheoldgit]

What is the diffence between an i pod and a MP3 player?
I know i-Pods are made by Apple, but are they any better or have different features than a MP3 player.

[mimi-moomoo]

Mp3 players only play mp3s whereas iPods play mp4s and mp3s because Apple decided to be annoying. This means if you upload cd's onto iTunes they immedately convert it into mp4 form which is fine until you try and send the song to a friend or put it on a webs page and so on.
Hope that little ramble helps

[Mattk]

an ipod is an mp3 player but it is far and away the most desirable.

[Fanriffic]

You can set iTunes to import your CD's as MP3, M4P (AAC), AIFF, WAV etc . . .

Have a look at this:

http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum =93123

Also, an iPod can play the formats listed here:

http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum =61476

I use both MP3 & AAC.

[fo3nix]

mimi-moomoo's rant is a little incorrect anyway (at least, it's hiding some important details). To get your music onto iPod, you use iTunes (just a music organiser). If you want iTunes to rip a CD so that you can put your CD onto iPod, then by default it rips the songs as aac (mp4). This is a superior standard to mp3, but many mp3 players (and windows media player 9 and below, perhaps 10 too?) don't support it. So consequently they don't work. Until the other manufacturers start supporting mp4 (it's really not that hard -- most mobile phone music players support it; my old Nokia that was 2 years old supported it), you can change the settings in iTunes to make it rip your stuff to mp3. Then it'll play everywhere.

As you say, iPod is just Apple's name for their mp3 player, like Hoover and vacuum cleaner. Personally I'm of the opinion that they're better than other mp3 players, simply because their interface is so much easier to use. They're also more popular than any other one, because of good marketing and good design.